Involving People in Science and Sustainability in the Pantanal Wetlands of Brazil - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 198

of desiring a sustainable global environment and generating action and policy toward
that end (Earth Watch 2008). But in order to get there, informed and implemented
decisions are needed.
There are five different sectors that could contribute to those decisions (Chandler
2004): having better information through research is clearly one of them, broad stake-
holder participation in the process is another, and an educated and motivated public
is a third. And these are the three sectors that Earth Watch focuses on. Clearly, socio-
economic factors and politics (Chandler's fourth and fifth sectors) are also involved,
but these are not directly involved through Earth Watch activities.
This chapter will briefly touch upon engagement of people in general, focus on
the Earth Watch model of how to engage people through science in particular, and,
finally, examine the case study example of the Pantanal wetlands of Brazil that were
also discussed in chapter 10.
ENGAGING PEOPLE
One of the key pieces beyond simply understanding the natural dynamics and the
planning process concerns the need to engage people (Chandler 2004). In particular,
what are the stakeholders required to engage in during the process to make land use
decisions? One of the lessons that Earth Watch has learned is that though it might
be easy to initially capture people's interest in environmental work, it is often very
difficult to maintain that level of engagement.
The second lesson is that it's not an all-or-nothing relationship. In other words,
there are different grades of engagement. For example, on one end of the spectrum of
engaging a community or individuals is the passive approach, where you just provide
them with information by giving a presentation and informing the public about what
is going to happen. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, the engagement can take the
form of self-mobilization and empowerment, where during that dialogue the public
are actually able to inform the ultimate decisions in the activities being undertaken.
In these two extremes, and everywhere in between, there are different ingredients
of how to facilitate that engagement ranging from answering questions to consulting
for solutions. So one of the key aspects in building this form of relationship is to set
clear expectations with the stakeholders as to the level of engagement that they're
expecting and what your role as an agency will be in facilitating that engagement
(Chandler 2004).
Clearly important in developing a relationship of engagement is the listening
aspect, which is sometimes forgotten. The challenge is to transform concerned citi-
zens from being passive recipients of information to becoming actively engaged par-
ticipants in the decision-making process. And one of the key approaches that Earth
Watch has developed in this regard is to use experiential techniques (Chandler 2004),
including the planning of the meetings, workshops, and so on, such that individuals
actually find themselves participating in some activity that helps shape the outcome
and understanding of the environmental issue of concern.
The other key aspect of engagement that Earth Watch is involved with is in deal-
ing with real-life, real-world situations. This is similar to the Habitat for Humanity
model where concerned citizens are actually involved in the construction of houses,